The possible pension and healthcare benefit losses are tied into the bankruptcy case of troubled miner Patriot Coal.
About 1000 people from the UMWA as well as miners from West Virginia, Kentucky and other coal mining regions joined the protest, which began Wednesday morning in front of Peabody Energy’s headquarters.
Peabody, which spun off Patriot Coal as its own entity in 2007, is accused of staging business deals that brought about the bankruptcy filing of its spin-off.
The AP said UMWA secretary treasurer Dan Kane was one of 10 arrested as he sat peacefully in front of the operator’s headquarters building.
“We will not be silent,” he told the news service.
“We are going to tell the public exactly what they're doing. We want the entire country to know.”
The demonstration is the second recent event organized by the union. Hundreds protested outside Peabody’s office as well as at the federal building in St Louis, where a bankruptcy proceeding was being held in the Patriot case, on January 29.
UMWA president Cecil Roberts and nine others were arrested at the same location during that protest.
Patriot spokeswoman Janine Orf told the AP that the cuts were part of its effort to save the producer, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization in July 2012.
“It's really about our survival, trying to keep Patriot as a viable employer of 4000 people,” she said.
“We are sacrificing across all employees and retirees. This is just where we are, and it's working its way through the court.”
Just hours after the first demonstration, Peabody spoke out to say that Patriot was its own story.
“Patriot was highly successful following its launch more than five years ago with significant assets, low debt levels and a market value that more than quadrupled in less than a year,” a company spokeswoman said, noting Patriot had top management, a bright future based on solid prospects and a strong balance sheet when it became its own entity in 2007.
“It’s worth noting the major events that occurred after Patriot became independent and before its bankruptcy,” she said.
“Patriot chose to make a major acquisition [of Magnum Coal], went through the global financial crisis and effects of low-cost shale gas on coal demand, experienced [Environmental Protection Agency] regulation that significantly raised environmental compliance costs and saw metallurgical coal prices decline.”
Peabody said the union retirees at the center of the healthcare benefits issue all worked for companies that were part of Patriot and the launch of the spin-off producer only came to be after the UMWA specifically signed off on a retiree benefit payment structure that Patriot started with as an independent company.
Patriot and the UMWA went on in 2011 to renegotiate a collective bargaining agreement. The parties chose at that time not to change that benefits structure.
“Peabody has lived up to its obligations and continues to do so,” the Peabody spokeswoman said.
“The UMWA is fully aware that this is a matter solely between the union and Patriot Coal and the proper process for deciding such issues is through the bankruptcy court – not the court of public opinion.”
The union, which totaled its January protest numbers at 750, estimated 90% of the retirees Patriot was responsible for never worked for Patriot but for Peabody or Arch Coal.
“Peabody dumped its health care obligations to these people without a second thought and now they’re crowing about it,” UMWA president Roberts said.
“Peabody, Arch Coal and Patriot Coal may be proud of the financial con-game they’re playing on these retirees to get out of decades of promises and obligations … but the truth is that this is a sickening display of corporate greed that has overstepped the boundaries of decency.
“In an America where there are few boundaries for corporations, that’s saying something.”
